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Registry Operator’s Proposal
For the .co-op global Top Level Domain
Sponsor :
Co-operative League of the USA D/B/A National Co-operative Business Association
Registry Operator :
Poptel Ltd
Volume 1 of 7
Heads of agreement
Signed application form
Signed confidentiality form
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Registry Operator’s Proposal
For the .co-op global Top Level Domain
Sponsor :
Co-operative League of the USA D/B/A National Co-operative Business Association
Registry Operator :
Poptel Ltd
Volume 2 of 7
Table of contents
List of appendices
Business capabilities and plan
Table of Contents
1 General
information (D1 to D11) 3
2 Business
Capabilities and Plan 6
2.1.1.1 Company
information and Formal Alliances 6
2.1.1.2 Background
to Poptel 8
2.1.1.8 How
we provide the services 15
2.1.2 How
we have achieved success 17
2.2.1.1 Profile
of a target customer 18
2.2.1.2 Services
demanded by customer 19
2.2.2.1 Core
registry services 19
2.2.2.3 Value
added services 20
2.2.3 Selling
and marketing the services 21
2.2.3.1 Proposed
cost of services 21
2.2.4 Building
the business operation 27
2.2.5.1 Summary
Illustrative Financial Forecasts 34
2.2.6.2 Provisions
for registry failure 38
3 Technical
Capabilities and Plan 40
3.1.1 Current
IT Architecture 40
3.1.2.2 Key
skills and expertise 46
3.1.4 Key
technical achievements 49
3.1.4.2 GMING
and the MIDAS project 49
3.1.4.3 Manchester
Community Information Network 50
3.1.4.4 Recent
Customer Projects 50
3.2.1 Underpinning
the business processes with IT 51
3.2.1.1 Applications
and information architecture 51
3.2.2.3 Configuration
management 65
3.2.3.3 Distribution
and publication 67
3.2.4 Interfacing
to key partners 67
3.2.5.2 User
authentication 68
Appendices
A. How
this proposal meets ICANN’s proposal criteria
E. Key
technical personnel profiles
Poptel is a long-standing, UK based Internet company providing high quality services mainly to organisations in the social economy and social enterprise sectors. Trade unions and co-operatives form a large part of our existing markets.
We have an innovative, largely employee owned co-operative structure with venture capital participation. Currently we have 55 staff, and expect up to 80 by the end of this year. We are investing heavily in our technical infrastructure and were recently rated No. 1 ISP in the UK for quality of service over a six-month period. We are amongst the top 20 Internet companies in Britain by financial performance.
We are a domain registry agent and members of Nominet in the UK, and register TLDs through NSI. We are planning to become an ICANN accredited Registrar.
We were approached by two international organisations, the ICFTU and Cooperative League of the U.S.A. d/b/a National Co-operative Business Association (NCBA) supported by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) the world body for the co-operative sector, to be the Registry Operator for new TLD applications for .union and .co-op, proposals which we have been happy to support. Both organisations represent substantial communities of interest on the Internet – hundreds of thousands of organisations and many millions of people. In each case the TLD proposed will be a sensible addition to the existing DNS hierarchy and will aid Internet users in locating the appropriate resources they seek.
The business case set out below represents our plan for providing a Registry Operator service for the .co-op TLD. The plan is not dependent on the success of the .union TLD application.
Assuming the application is successful, during the start up phase Poptel will act as both Registry Operator and Registrar for the TLD. Working with the TLD Sponsor our intention is to locate other downstream registrars to provide the direct client facing services, thus enhancing competition for registration services within the TLD.
Our business model is based on realistic demand scenarios calculated with confidence levels of 90%, 50% and 10%. We believe that the market is there to create a viable, sustainable business helping to prove the concept of new TLDs.
We have entered into an agreement with the Sponsor to use a proportion of the revenues generated to create a Digital Divide fund supporting Internet projects in the Sponsor’s constituency. We do not believe that the natural monopoly created by a Registry Operator should be exploited in any way.
The overarching aim of our technical plans as laid out below are to maintain the stability of the Internet.
In preparing this plan we have used the good offices of Nominet, the UK registrar and would like to acknowledge their help and support.
Poptel has a demonstrable high level of capability in the provision of ISP services. Together our staff skill set is complementary for the provision of technical services including advanced network technologies, operating systems technologies, and systems development skills. We have already established highly available, scaleable systems architecture for providing ISP services utilising Open Source software and industry standard systems such as Windows NT.
We have assessed the business processes required for both the registry operator and registrar operations using our knowledge of the industry. We have developed an IT architecture that includes both core registry services and back office applications providing key functions such as billing, office automation, etc. The architecture utilises technology already proven in our ISP business, and which we know is highly scaleable, available and robust. The key criteria for the technology is to provide a continuous service to the Internet community and with this in mind our architecture has no single point of failure having been built with resilience as the major priority.
D2. Full legal name, principal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the registry operator.
Poptel Limited.
Registered Office: Rutherford House, Manchester Science Park, Manchester, M15 6GG, UK.
Tel: +44 161 906 3800
Fax: +44 161 906 3801
E-Mail address: info@poptel.net
D2 Addresses etc. of all other business locations of the registry operator.
London Office: 21-25 Bruges Place, London NW1 0TF, UK
Tel: +44 20 7284 6900
Fax: +44 20 7284 6951
D4. The registry operator’s type of business entity.
Limited company (limited by shares) registered in England and Wales
D5. URL of the registry operator’s principle web site
D6. Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S number
238764331
D7. Number of employees.
55
D8. Registry operator’s total revenue (in US dollars) in the last ended fiscal year.
Poptel Limited was formed in October 1999 with business operations commencing on 1st December 1999. Prior to that the Poptel service was operated by Soft Solution Limited a company formed in 1985. Soft Solution Ltd received $2.25m of venture capital funding in December 1999 hence the creation of Poptel Ltd and the transfer of the business, assets and liabilities. Soft Solution Ltd remains in existence holding the majority shareholding of Poptel Ltd.
Soft Solution Ltd’s fiscal year runs from June to May. Revenue to 31st May 1999, the last set of audited accounts was $1,162,500.
Annualised revenue on current monthly income is $2,250,000.
Apologies for the complexity of this answer.
D9. Full names and positions of directors, officers, managers and persons or entities owning 5% or more of the registry operator
(i) Directors and (ii) Officers and (iii) Managers:
Shaun Fensom, Chair and Founder (of Soft Solution Ltd and Poptel Ltd)
Stuart Marsden, Managing Director
Yoram Amiga, Vice Chair, and Founder
Malcolm Corbett, Vice Chair, and Corporate Affairs Director
Gabrielle Kagan, Director
Roseni Dearden, Director
Kenneth Holder, Chair of Soft Solution Employee Benefit Trust
Stephen Herman, Sales & Marketing Director
Jeff Roberts, acting Technical Director
Lucy Brotherston, Professional Services Manager
Cazz Ward, Technical Team Manager
Sheila Collins, Customer Services & Operations Manager
Dominic Search, Product Development Manager
John Corker, Helpdesk Manager
Paul Evans, acting Sales Manager
Tracy Tarrant, Personnel Manager
(iv) Persons or entities owning 5% or more of registry operator:
Poptel Worldwide Ltd.
D10. Contact person for this proposal
Malcolm Corbett.
Tel: +44 20 7284 6900,
Fax: +44 207 284 6951,
E-mail Malcolm.Corbett@poptel.net
Poptel Limited was formed on 28th October 1999 for the transfer of assets and business operations from Soft Solution Limited the predecessor company. Soft Solution Limited continues in existence as the majority shareholder of Poptel Limited on behalf of the employees of the company. The reason for this transfer of business was an injection of £1.5m venture capital funding on 1st December 1999.
Poptel Limited is a company limited by shares registered in England and Wales.
Soft Solution Limited is a company limited by guarantee with no share capital registered in England and Wales. It was formed on 27th August 1985. Poptel was a trade mark of Soft Solution Ltd (now transferred to Poptel Ltd), and for many years its sole business activity.
There was complete continuity of business operations, management, staffing etc. between Soft Solution Ltd and Poptel Ltd.
Poptel has two locations:
· Manchester Science Park – the network and technical operations centre, helpdesk, accounts and administration.
· London, Bruges Place in Camden – professional services, sales and marketing.
Poptel currently has 55 staff.
A minority stake Poptel is owned by Poptel Worldwide Ltd, set up as a holding company between Soft Solution Ltd and our venture capital partners Sum International. Poptel Worldwide now has stakes in other Internet companies with whom business alliances are being built. Companies involved in Poptel Worldwide include:
· The Phone Co-op, a consumer co-operative offering low cost telephony services with whom we have developed a three-way joint venture with Sei Mitsu to develop a new industrial strength telecomms and Internet billing system – Eco Billing. Poptel are also developing a second joint venture with the Phone Co-op to offer both telephone and Internet services on a consumer co-op model.
· Sei Mitsu Solutions, a company set up to exploit the development of a software management system developed to enable the company to charge for transactional services across the Internet, in particular wholesale trading and commodity clearance of telephone minutes.
· Something4 a company that devises, develops and delivers new e-commerce and Internet businesses. Poptel have developed a joint venture with Something4 – 100lines.com a lifestyle portal aimed at membership organisations and their commercial service providers.
· Earth Summit 2002 – a comprehensive lifestyle portal with an ethical and environmentally sound slant. The portal’s aim is to deliver “green” and ethical information services and e-commerce to both business and the consumer, linked to the process leading to the UN Earth Summit in 2002.
· Click4Charity – a venture building an Internet community amongst a large group of charities based on an ASP model with a range of web tracking and branding services linke to Poptel’s automated donation service.
· Membership ASP being developed between Poptel, Z/Yen and Miller Technology to provide membership tracking, online income collection, virtual community facilities, information services and commercial services.
Trade References
TNS Distribution Ltd, Mile Oak Industrial Estate, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY10 8NS
Contact: Matthew Cartwright
Turnover: £186316
A L Digital Ltd, Voysey House, Barlow Mow Passage, London, W4 4GB
Contact: Claire Chaplow
Turnover: £106034
Easynet Ltd, 44 Whitfield Street, London, W1P 5RF
Contact: Chris George
Turnover: £38775
Mayflower Business Systems Ltd 2000, Unit 3, Heathgate Place, 75-87 Agincourt Road, London, NW3 2NU
Contact: Paul Rocks
Turnover: £170821
Poptel has insurance cover in respect of Employers’, Public and Producsts Liability. Our Products Liability insurance has a limit of indemnity of £5,000,000 for any one occurrence bu in aggregate during the period of insurance. The geographical limit is anywhere in the world. A copy of the certificate is appended below.
Poptel is an innovator, on at least three counts. Established in 1986, Poptel was one of the first Internet services providers (ISPs) in the UK (and certainly one of the first in the world to advocate the use of these technologies for the non-commercial sectors). It remains one of the largest and recently was rated best for service quality. Second, Poptel is a co-operative and the only employee-owned ISP. Third, Poptel recently obtained substantial venture capital funding - and succeeded in retaining its co-operative ethos and a recognisably co-operative structure.
Poptel operates in an innovative industry where employee participation, relationship marketing and financial innovation are all part of the business culture.
Building value in an Internet company means creating ‘knowledge’ and retaining that knowledge within the company. Motivating employees to create new knowledge is essential to building a company. Keeping employees is another key to retaining knowledge. Many Internet companies use a degree of employee ownership in an effort to retain and motivate employees. CMG, one of the fastest growing software companies in the UK is 30% owned by employees. Yahoo and Abode operate employee share plans. Over 80% employees of Network Solutions Inc., the world's leading Registrar of Web addresses, participate in its employee ownership plan. (Its major outside shareholder SAIC is the largest employee-owned research and engineering company in the United States.)
In Internet companies the management tends to flat structures, with direct informal relationships and use of teams. The management and ownership approach results in employees regarding the business as a collective adventure, generating enthusiasm and dynamism. Poptel addresses these issues by involving all employees within a co-operative structure.
In the emerging Internet market place, customers are mobile as never before. Building customer loyalty requires building relationships, often based on shared values, and creating a sense of membership and identity. Web sites say hello to users by name, and track their preferences. Some e-commerce sites sign up ‘members’ who become ‘co-buyers’. This relationship marketing fits well with a co-operative approach, in fact in builds on ideas first pioneered by co-operatives. Poptel, as a membership organisation itself, understands membership and provides services for many membership organisations: co-operatives, trade unions and the voluntary sector.
Poptel’s founders saw the potential of a niche for an 'alternative' service aimed at organisations and individuals working and campaigning in areas such as the labour movement, human rights and development.
The 1985 ‘Poptel Report’ saw scope for the development of on-line database and electronic mail services in particular. Key to the whole project was the idea that 'telematics' technology would become critical to organisations working in those fields where access to information and the exchange of ideas can make the difference between success and failure. Poptel saw its role as an enabler, encouraging organisations to take up the technology and providing appropriate services.
Since those early days Poptel has developed on-line services to support a variety of initiatives from trade unions creating international on-line networks, to local authorities developing services to support economic and community development, to helping co-operatives develop e-commerce and charities raise money on-line.
Poptel’s story is appended. It is a story of endeavour helping organisations with a social purpose to make effective use of on-line technologies.
Today, fifteen years after the Poptel Report, we are entering the next phase of fulfilling those early ambitions. Our support for the creation of new TLDs is a reflection of our concern that communities working for social progress should be recognised on the Internet with a specific identity. How we can provide the technical support to that process is what the rest of this document sets out to demonstrate.
Poptel is a unique company with a unique history. We are first and foremost a business, but a business with strong beliefs and an innovative co-operative ownership structure.
Being a co-operative which is majority owned by its employees makes Poptel a strong company with a sense of purpose, a committed workforce and a loyal customer base
Poptel has four principle aims:
· To provide high quality and professional on-line information and communications services.
· To develop and promote services which help its customers working for progressive social and economic change.
· To provide secure, well-paid and meaningful employment, and to involve its members in the democratic formulation of company policy and objectives.
· To invest in the continuation of the business and to grow the capital value of its stakeholders.
Poptel further seeks to prove that a co-operative business can achieve these aims while adhering to the core principles of the co-operative movement. The outward facing components of Poptel’s mission are summarised in our slogan - ‘Connect, Inform & Empower’.
The provision of registry services meets all of these principle aims. It is a logical step for a company with our history and the trust invested in Poptel by organisations in our key market sectors.
Poptel is run as a socially responsible business. The management and directors take proper account of the interests of all Poptel’s shareholders (both employee and external owners). They also take account of the welfare of Poptel’s workers; the maintenance of professional standards and ethical business practices in the provision of services; and the effect of its business activities on the community at large.
In this context Poptel considers the following as unethical: the sale and manufacture of arms, the supply of tobacco, oppressive regimes, exploitative pornography, discrimination on grounds of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
Poptel serves a number of market sectors broadly in the ‘social economy’. These include:
· Social enterprises – co-operatives, fair trade organisations, community businesses, new public sector mutuals. Examples include the portal site for the UK Co-operative Union - umbrella organisation for the retail co-operative sector; Social Enterprise London, a leading agency promoting co-operative solutions; Oxford Swindon & Gloucester Co-op, one of the major regional retail co-ops in the UK; Greenwich Leisure a leading new mutual in the public sector. Services include website development and hosting, Internet connectivity, business development consultancy.
· Trade Unions – Many trade unions had their first e-mail and Internet services with Poptel. In the 1980s and early 90s they used Poptel to connect up international networks of affiliates. Today Poptel provides a full range of services to trade unions supporting membership development, communications, research and policy. Clients include most of the major UK unions and a number of International Trade Secretariats plus the ICFTU.
· Charitable and voluntary sector organisations – Poptel is one of the UK’s leading providers of services to the charitable and voluntary organisations having worked with the sector for many years. Recent projects include a partnership with the Co-operative Bank and a group of large charities to develop a new Charity Donation portal site. In addition to the direct provision of services to charities, Poptel helps the sector innovate with consultancy and presentations at major charity conferences.
· International Development Agencies – Many International aid and development agencies had their first e-mail and on-line services with Poptel – often with the aim of connecting up remote offices around the world. Today Poptel is a major sponsor of the NGO process for the next UN Earth Summit (2002), hosts major co-location projects for organisations like Oxfam, and provides VISP services for agencies like Christian Aid.
· Local Government & economic development – Poptel was in the forefront of developing on-line services for community and economic development working with Manchester and Kirklees councils and the European Telecities project. Innovations included the Manchester Community Information Network; an online network of citizen’s advice bureaux; the establishment of a group of local training centres known as ‘Electronic Village Halls’; the Idea Project which provided free Internet connections and on-line services for nearly 1500 small arts, culture and music businesses.
· Think Tanks and political parties – Poptel has worked with the UK Labour Party since 1993 providing a secure email network for local constituency parties, on-line bulletin boards and mailing lists, web hosting etc. Tony Blair was the second MP to get a Poptel e-mail address in 1993. Poptel also provides services for the Party of European Socialists. At this year’s Labour Party Conference (September 2000) we launched a new service - PolicyBrief.org – with a number of leading think tanks.
Poptel has offered on-line services since 1986 originally operating the GeoNet e-mail and bulletin board hosting service, connected through the X.25 packet switched networks. In 1994 Poptel started offering full Internet services including dial-up accounts, then leased line and ISDN access services, domain name registration, web and database hosting and latterly design services.
Today our services fall into three broad categories: Technical Services, Content Services and Organisational Services.
Poptel provides fast, professional, technical Internet Services to organisations and individuals. From a variety of Internet Account packages to hosting databases, from leased lines to co-locating servers in our Network Operations Centre, we offer a comprehensive range of reliable Internet Access solutions.
At the heart of our technical operations is our Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Manchester. The core network uses 100 Mb/s Ethernet throughout and has full UPS and generator backup and 24 hour staffing. Our bandwidth is flexible and can be wound up according to need. With load balancing switches behind all our servers and full redundancy we support both Unix and NT environments, while firewalls ensure maximum security for out network.
There is no single point of failure in our network.
The quality of our Technical Services is matched with a wide range of in-house skills. From our network and system administrators to the highly motivated client support staff, our teams monitor and maintain our operations constantly and are ready to provide assistance when required.
Our Technical Services include:
· Domain Name Registration
· Web Hosting
· Database Hosting
· Internet Access Packages
· Global Roaming
· Leased Lines
· ADSL
· BT Surftime
· Server Co-Location
· Network Consultancy
· Onsite Installation Service
Poptel’s customers benefit from our unrivalled experience of designing and maintaining websites for organisations with a social purpose in the public, voluntary, community and membership sectors.
Our clients place a premium on high-value, up to date content delivered in a professional, well-structured manner. Designed with this in mind Poptel’s range of dynamic database-driven content management tools ensures that clients can add new information to their websites without the need for web design skills.
Our suite of add-on web modules including a documents database, press office and our online newsroom, allow clients to easily add complex additional functionality, interactivity and real content control to their websites.
For additional support clients can rely on our consultancy services, “website-health-checks” and a special range of maintenance contracts. We can also help with site traffic analysis, membership tracking, personalisation, virtual community management and bespoke e-commerce applications.
Clients can also take advantage of our ethical e-commerce payments system to combine lower transaction charges with peace of mind for themselves and their users.
Our Content Services include:
· Web-site Design
· WAP design
· Database design
· Bespoke Programming
· Online Newsroom Module
· Online Press Office Module
· Documents Database Module
· E-commerce Module
· Discussion Forums
· Mailing Lists
· CD ROM design
· Consultancy
· Website Health-Checks
· Maintenance Contracts
Poptel is the UK’s leading specialist in providing Internet and Application Services to charities, membership organisations, campaigning and policy based groups and co-operatives. We work closely with our clients to ensure that our proven membership and e-commerce solutions and services match their exact requirements and enhance their organisational strengths.
With our unique experience, Poptel is the partner of choice in marrying membership databases with secure online id verification systems to provide true personalisation and member tracking. Poptel also operates various affinity schemes including branded free Internet offerings – so-called ‘Virtual ISP’ services.
For larger e-commerce projects Poptel provides a full integration programme, coupling bespoke shopping baskets with back-end database design and our own ethical payment facilities.
We aim to help our clients to make the most of their relationship with members and supporters and to fully embrace the Internet’s potential for their organisation.
We register domain names on behalf of clients enabling them to promote their identity, services and specific projects on the Internet.
To support our clients’ organisational systems we offer guaranteed dedicated bandwidth and flexible co-location facilities with a range of advanced options such as load balancing and hourly backups.
Poptel’s expert technical teams also provide a range of consultancy advice, as well as onsite services for organisations including installation and maintenance contracts.
Our Organisational Services include:
· Domain Registration
· Group accounts
· Free Internet schemes
· ID Verifications Systems
· Member Tracking
· Bespoke e-commerce solutions
· Leased Lines and Firewall solutions
· Server Co-location
· Intranet solutions
· Network client services
· Systems Integration
· Anti-virus strategies
· Security Consultancy
We aim at all times to maintain a professional relationship with our clients with account managers looking after key sectors and organisations. In many cases we help clients to work out how best to develop their use of the Internet in relation to their own operations, their members, customers and supporters.
Our customer services operation is highly effective with 24x7 cover for key technical services like co-location projects, leased lines etc. Telephone and e-mail support for individual clients operates from 0800 to 2200 Monday to Friday and 1000 to 2200 at weekends.
We provide service level agreements for all core services guaranteeing availability, load balancing, bandwidth levels etc.
In the trade union, non-profit and co-operative sectors we are well known for providing high level strategic input through keynote speeches at conferences and articles in sector-specific journals.
Poptel sells its services both directly and through reseller channels. We work with two types of reseller: umbrella organisations within a market sector e.g. National Housing Federation for the social housing sector; and businesses with a presence in particular sectors who wish to add Poptel services to their range of offerings. Currently channel programmes tend to be based on direct one-on-one relationships between Poptel and the reseller, however this is under review by the Marketing Department.
Poptel has a highly qualified and experienced management team. Summary biographies are appended.
· Managing Director, Stuart Marsden, has a strong background in the development of Internet applications in the financial services industry.
· Sales & Marketing Director, Stephen Herman, was previously a board level director of one of the largest technical outsourcing companies in the UK.
· Acting Technical Director, Jeff Roberts (co-ordinator of this proposal), was previously IT director of the largest independent travel/tour operator in Europe.
· Founder and chair, Shaun Fensom, is recognised as a major figure in the Internet Service Providers industry in the UK.
· Corporate Affairs Director, Malcolm Corbett, is one of the leading Internet figures in the trade union, co-operative and social enterprise sectors in Europe.
· Customer Services Manager, Sheila Collins, has a strong systems background with many years’ experience in industry and the public sector.
· Professional Services Manager, Lucy Brotherston has over ten years experience delivering community and business information projects, and is a founding member of the Manchester Community Information Network.
· Product Development Manager, Dominic Search has a strong technical background in networking and the Internet. Currently he is responsible for the planning and introduction of new products and services.
· Technical Team Manager, Cazz Ward, has a strong technical background coupled with the ability to effectively manage the technical team responsible for Poptel’s network infrastructure and services.
Poptel currently has a rapidly growing and dedicated staff complement of 55 people. This is nearly a threefold growth in the past nine months. By the end of 2000 we expect to be employing 80 people. Following a six month probationary period all staff are invited to join the co-operative and become co-owners of the business.
Poptel hires staff through open recruitment and operates an equal opportunities policy. As an employee owned company staff benefits and career development are important issues for us. All staff are encouraged to undertake training relevant to their career aspirations at company expense. Poptel’s employment policies are subject to UK employment legislation.
Poptel operates two offices in London and Manchester. London is the location of our sales, marketing, customer services and professional services departments. Manchester is the location of our Network Operation Centre in the Manchester Telecity Internet Exchange in which major ISPs and Telcos operate co-location and peering services. Manchester also houses our Technical Department, Accounts and Helpdesk. In both London and Manchester Poptel has reserved additional space to accommodate extra staffing.
Poptel has grown from a four-person company in the mid-1980s to a company, which is projected to employ 80 people by the end of this year. Our early development was achieved using small-scale loan capital, retained profits and project based grant income. At the end of 1999 we successfully raised £1.5m from venture capital sources and a further £1m in September 2000. Remarkably, this was achieved without compromising our co-operative business status. Details of the approach we took form the basis of a submission to the UK Co-operative Commission and can be found on Poptel’s website.
Poptel’s turnover in the year to May-99 was £700,000. Our accounting year has changed to December. In the period since December 1999 we have achieved our revenue targets aiming for growth to £1.3m, and to be in profit by the end of the first quarter of 2001.
With the injection of capital Poptel has been able to develop a whole range of new services, particularly web and database development, membership services and e-commerce needed by our client base. As they invest more in their Internet presence, they now have the confidence in Poptel to invest it with us. And we have been able to revamp our customer services operations and strengthen management.
We believe that they key to our success is our co-operative ownership structure and the participatory yet professional style of management that we have developed.
There have been many milestones in the development of Poptel. Our history is appended. However since the injection of capital we have had our most exciting period ever.
· Over the past nine months we have nearly trebled the size of Poptel’s staff complement – and we have not lost a single person in the process
· We are consistently meeting tough revenue targets set at the start of this year.
· We were nominated No. 1 ISP in the UK for the quality of our services over a six-month period by PCPlus magazine (one of the UK’s main PC magazines).
· We are winning some of the largest contracts awarded in our market sectors – e.g. hosting all of Oxfam’s Internet services.
· We have the resources to sponsor important and socially valuable services – like the website for NGOs participating in the process to create the next UN Earth Summit in 2002.
All of the forgoing information demonstrates Poptel’s longstanding experience in running Internet services including domain registration and database development and operation. We provide services to many of the most significant organisations in our market sectors in the UK and internationally. We have the technical capability, the human and financial resources, and the business partnerships to be highly competent at running a TLD Registry Operation.
There are many different types of co-operative business in many different sectors, from consumer co-operatives in the retail sector, to agricultural co-operatives, to banking and insurance co-operatives and so on. They range in size from very large retail co-operative societies with tens or hundreds of thousands of members through to very small worker co-operatives with fewer than ten employee-members. Although the legislative framework for co-operatives varies from country to country, all co-operatives conform to the principles laid out in the International Co-operative Alliance Statement on the Co-operative Identity - http://www.coop.org/ica/info/enprinciples.html
Information about the scale of the co-operative sector globally can be found on the ICA website at http://www.coop.org/statistics.html. The ICA calculates that there are 749,000 co-operative societies globally representing nearly 725 million members.
In developing countries co-operatives often have limited access to the Internet. On the other hand there is substantial interest amongst co-operatives to improve communications and gain access to e-commerce b2b and b2c services. One of the aims of the .co-op TLD would be to use a proportion of the income derived to support projects tacking digital divide issues in the constituency.
It is difficult to predict take up given the heterogeneous nature of the sector. However, co-operatives tend operate from a position of being ethically motivated and trusted businesses. Furthermore they have loyal members. These are invaluable assets in the developing e-commerce arena. A .co-op TLD should aim to leverage the e-loyalty and trust issue to become a highly trusted place to do business on the Internet. In this case demand should be significant over time.
Poptel will act as both Registry Operator and Registrar in the first instance. However it is intended to locate downstream registrars who are likely to be ISPs and other Internet related organisations, or possibly organisations working in the sector who add registration activities to their core competencies. The actual selection of downstream registrars will be in the competence of the Sponsoring Organisation with advice from Poptel.
At this stage it is difficult to gauge how many downstream registrars there will be. At least one potential registrar has been identified in the United States – the National Rural Telecommunications Co-operatives, a substantial organisation offering ISP and telecomms services. Other registrars will be sought during the start up phase of TLD operations.
Our plans assume that Poptel’s share of the Registrar market will decline from 100% to 10% from the start of the third year of operation.
The key services demanded by registrants will be for an efficient and reliable service to hold their domain in the TLD. With agreement from the Sponsoring Organisation other value added services can be offered by registrars, for instance web site development, e-commerce, membership services etc.
Additionally Poptel acting as Registry Operator will seek to develop value added services such as building a public LDAP compliant directory service that can be used to locate the domain name of any organisation in the Registry.
· Operation of the TLD technical services (see below).
· Provision of SLDs in agreement with sponsors.
· Provision of domain names in the TLD through registrars.
· Whois lookup service.
· Verification of uniqueness of requested domain names.
· A system to move domain names between registrars when requested.
· Provide assistance in the resolution of domain name disputes in collaboration with registrars and sponsors.
· Maintain a separation between the registry and registrar operations.
· Ensure that the services do not adversely affect the quality or integrity of the domain name system and the Internet in general.
Poptel will provide the following services as a Registrar:
· Register domains on behalf of customers.
· Transfer domains on behalf of customers.
· Maintain a separation between the registry and registrar operations.
· Advise on appropriate names, names that are not available, general policies of the TLD.
· Advise customers on how to migrate from existing domain names to the new names.
· Advise on issues such as aliasing to web sites and mail servers, domain multi parking etc.
· Advise customers on how to transfer their domain names to Poptel or other registrars.
· Maintain the customer relationship including informing customers about developments in the TLD.
· Charge the customer for domain registration and collect debt.
· Advise customers on renewal of their domain names.
Development of a directory service to enable Internet users to locate organisations and their domain names (as opposed to a whois service in which the user needs to know the domain name to find the organisation).
Poptel, acting as a Registrar will offer its range of technical, content and organisational services as value added services. See above for details.
A fixed pricing policy has been adopted for the .co-op TLD for both the Registry Operator price and the Registrar price.
The proposed annual charges are as follows:
Table 1: Annual Prices
|
|
Price (US$) |
|
Registry Operator Fee |
20 |
|
Recommended Registrar Fee |
75 |
These prices have been chosen to meet the following criteria agreed with NCBA:
· The .co-op TLD proposal should be viable and sustainable by itself.
· The Registry Operator alone should be viable and sustainable on the 90% confidence level projections – i.e. the lowest projected take-up – but should not abuse its monopoly position.
· The business of being a registrar should be attractive enough for us to be able to recruit them. Registrar Prices are recommended but not mandatory.
· Price discounts for domain multi parking and other facilities have not been considered at this time.
The Registry Operator will need to:
· Re-coup the initial investment of approx $800K+ over three years
· Have sufficient annual income to cover its running costs.
The Registrars will need a reasonable margin for business viability.
It is accepted and agreed between NCBA and Poptel that it is in the best interests of the community served by the TLD and of the Internet community as a whole that the registry operation is effective, efficient and sustainable.
It is therefore agreed that the revenue generated by the registry operation should be deployed to the following purposes in the order shown:
· Firstly to cover the reasonable costs incurred by Poptel in the setting up and operation of the registry.
· Secondly to cover the reasonable costs incurred by NCBA in performing its duties according to the agreement.
· Thirdly to provide Poptel with funds to invest in the efficient, effective and sustainable operation of the registry.
· Fourthly to refund the costs incurred by NCBA and Poptel in making the application.
· Fifthly to provide a fair and reasonable return on investment to Poptel for the costs in setting up the registry operation, the rate of return to be agreed between the parties.
Any surplus remaining after these priorities have been satisfied shall be shared (in a proportion to be agreed) between Poptel (as a further return on its investment in the registry operation) and a Digital Divide Fund (to be established and administered by NCBA the purpose of which shall be to assist co-operatives to make effective use of the Internet).
Poptel and NCBA shall take such reasonable steps as are necessary to be able to provide a fair and reasonably accurate account of revenues and expenditures pertaining to the operation of the registry.
The demand profile has been calculated taking into account the following factors:
· ICA statistics which show that there are nearly 750,000 co-operative enterprises around the world with 725 million members
· ICA figures are aggregated by geographic regions which have been replicated in the demand scenarios.
· Americas – 64,000 co-operatives, modified slightly from ICA statistics to take account of NCBA’s estimate of 45,000 co-operatives in North America. US co-operatives operate in many business sectors, including food retail to banking, farming, telecommunications and energy. With a substantial existing web presence, North American co-operatives are expected to have the highest and quickest take up of the .co-op TLD. It is likely that significant numbers of co-ops will adopt multiple domain names in the TLD to reflect new projects and brands. This has not been taken into account in the demand estimates.
· Africa – 27,000 co-operatives, with a significant presence in agriculture. With the lowest levels of Internet access, African co-operatives are expected to have the slowest take up for the .co-op TLD.
· Europe – 197,000 co-operatives in retail, banking, agriculture, manufacturing, social care and other sectors. European co-operatives have a high web presence and are expected to have a rapid take up of the .co-op TLD. As with North American co-operatives, a significant number of European co-ops are likely to adopt multiple names in the TLD reflecting different projects and brands.
· Asia – 480,000 co-operatives in agriculture, retail, banking and other sectors. Parts of Asia have relatively high levels of Internet access, others don’t. Consequently demand is projected to take off more slowly than with American and European co-operatives, but to ultimately be the largest regional group in the TLD. Fortunately the words co-op and co-operative are nearly universal, even in Asia (for instance the Japanese Han consumer co-ops, with 20 million members, use the Co-op symbol).
· The possibility of registrations in reserved second level domains has been discussed with NCBA but does not form part of the demand calculations.
Demand has been estimated at three confidence levels:
· Scenario 1 - 10% - demand is nine times less likely to be exceeded as not met, (i.e. the highest market penetration). The overall rate of growth in this scenario approximates to that experienced by Nominet for .uk domain registrations.
· Scenario 2 - 50% - demand at this level is as likely to be exceeded as not met;
· Scenario 3 - 90% - demand is nine times as likely to be exceeded as not met, take up is nine times more likely at this level (i.e. lowest market penetration),
Demand estimates have been made for four years, the term of the TLD sponsor’s agreement with Poptel acting as Registry Operator.
Table 2: Market Penetration
|
Market Penetration |
|||||
|
Scenario |
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Total Penetration |
|
1 – 10% confidence |
3% |
12% |
26% |
40% |
81% |
|
2 – 50% confidence |
1% |
6% |
13% |
20% |
40% |
|
3 – 90% confidence |
1% |
6% |
5% |
8% |
20% |
· To work with and through the Sponsors to communicate the benefits of the new restricted TLD to the target audience – organisations within the sponsor’s constituency.
· To manage a planned uptake of the new TLD.
· To establish relationships with downstream registrars accredited by the TLD sponsor.
The broad Communications Strategy is a combination of Internet ‘viral’ marketing, working with the Sponsors to inform key parts of their constituencies, coupled with a territory focused media campaign aimed at both key newspapers and IT publications most likely to be read by IT and communications staff in target organisations.
Key to the development of the .co-op TLD is joint activity with the NCBA acting as sponsors and the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the UN recognised affiliate body for co-operative organisations globally.
ICA has 245 member organisations plus four international members and five associate members. Members include national unions or federations of co-op societies; national confederations of co-op unions; national co-op business organisations with majority individual ownership; international co-operative organisations. ICA members are themselves affiliate bodies with their own national membership. In addition there are a range of international sectoral organisations (e.g. agriculture, tourism, banking) each with their own membership. Together these organisations aggregate to a total of 749,000 co-operative organisations and 725 million individual members.
In the United States the NCBA has approximately 300 organisational members who are themselves co-operatives, associations of co-operatives and service organisations. In total the NCBA estimates there are 45,000 co-operative in the US with approximately 120 million members.
For this core initial group promotion of the benefits will take place through:
· specific briefings at national and international events;
· direct communications with business managers, IT and Communications departments;
· FAQs explaining the benefits and how to migrate from existing .com and .cc addresses etc;
· Capturing the major co-ops, mainly in the developed world, will establish credibility for the .co-op TLD.
During the initial start up period, the TLD will be offered to organisations affiliated to the NCBA and ICA with Poptel acting as both Registry Operator and Registrar. During this period downstream registrars will be identified. They will act as the main channel to market in their geographic areas, promoting the TLD to nearly 750,000 co-operatives.
During the start up period PR will be undertaken with key media in the sector internationally and regionally to explain the benefits of the new TLD. Media used will include both paper-based journals, web sites and Internet mailing lists.
The PR campaign will be rolled out by geographic territory concentrating on those with the most significant target audiences. The PR campaign will work together with and in support of, the activities of downstream registrars as they become accredited.
In the Start up period Poptel will act as the sole registrar for the .co-op TLD. After the start-up phase, the process will be opened up to seek downstream registrars to enhance competition for registration services. This number will not be limited. Poptel, in consultation with the NCBA, will determine criteria and select them. Preference will be given to those organisations that are socially responsible.
For example, one potential registrar has been located, the National Rural Telecommunications Co-operative (NRTC), in the U.S. NRTC is telecommunications co-operative, owned and controlled by its 1,000 rural utility co-operative members. These members provide electric or telephone service to 15 million rural households in the United States.
Following the start up period Poptel will continue to act as a Registrar aiming to operate in defined geographic markets – principally the UK and Europe. In the UK Poptel is already a major supplier of Internet services (including domain registration) to the co-ops and other forms of ‘social enterprise’ .
The benefits of registering in the .co-op TLD will be marketed through the following channels:
· PR in trade press and through appropriate Internet channels and communities of interest (e.g. the cooperative-bus and co-opnet services).
· Direct marketing to co-operative business, communications and IT managers.
As stated above one potential registrar has already been identified – the American National Rural Telecommunications Co-operatives who offer ISP services to the US co-operative sector. During the start up period a detailed programme for locating and accrediting further downstream registrars will be established in collaboration with NCBA and ICA. It is expected that these will be mainly existing Internet companies, and likely that they will already have (or be developing) relationships with the TLD constituency in their regions. Since they essentially act as a reseller channel for the TLD, an appropriate channel programme will be developed.
Downstream Registrars will be provided with web-based materials to support their marketing efforts alongside guidance on Dispute Resolution procedures and web forms for the registration fulfilment procedure. Effectively this will become part of the accreditation mechanism for the registrars in the TLD.
The strategy will provide opportunities for Registrars to communicate the benefits of value added services (web design, e-commerce etc.) to their target markets.
The following diagram shows the high-level business processes that are key to a Registry Operator and Registrar business (as Poptel will establish both operations and there are synergies between the processes, both sets have been shown together). Several processes concern the lifecycle of services, from concept through to delivery, which underpin the service-orientated nature of the business. In addition to developing and supplying services, the business needs to fulfil its obligations to the Internet community, including implementing the Sponsor’s policies, maintaining service levels, guaranteeing availability and ensuring the integrity of the systems and data. In common with all businesses, there are processes to set and review the strategy, and co-ordinate activities across the business.
   |
|||
 |
|||
In order to understand how the high-level processes will be resourced by people and supported by systems, the following table describes each process in more detail. Against each process are the objectives, information and systems that are critical to the successful execution of the process. The information and systems that are deemed critical form part of the applications and database architecture described in the Technical Plan.
Notes on the table:
a) Frequently a system or database is shown as critical to more than one business process. However, there will not be more than one logical version of the same system / database within the Registry Operator / Registrar business.
b) Not all of the processes in the diagram are relevant to both the Registry Operator and Registrar business operations. The ‘Registry Op or Registrar’ column shows to which business the process refers.
Table 3:
Description of business processes
|
High-level process title |
Sub-process title |
Registry Op (RO) or Registrar (R)? |
Business process description |
Critical objectives and information / systems that are key to the process |
|
Market registry / registrar services |
Identify service opportunities |
RO |
Working with the Sponsor, the Registry Operator (RO) will identify new services that have the potential to enhance the RO service to its customers (e.g. Registrars) |
Understanding the requirements of the domain members. Understanding the possible impact on the Sponsor’s domain, RO ‘s business and the RO’s customers who are Registrars. Communications between RO and Sponsor. |
|
|
|
R |
Working with its selected partners, the Registrar will identify new services to enhance its commercial standing. If necessary the Registrar will request additional services from the RO that will facilitate the implementation of the new services. |
Understanding the requirements of its customer base. Assessing the possible impact on the Registrar‘s business. |
|
|
Determine how each service will be sold and the pricing structure |
RO / R |
Working with key partners the RO / Registrar will determine the value of services to its customers and the commercially driven price. |
Understanding the requirements of its customer base. Access to competitive market information. |
|
|
Identify potential customers |
RO |
Working with the Sponsor, the RO will identify new customers to approach to join the domain (e.g. Registrars). |
Knowledge of organizations that are eligible to join the domain. Understanding the requirements of potential domain members. Communications between RO and Sponsor. A database of current domain members. |
|
|
|
R |
Working with its selected partners, the Registrar will identify new customers to approach. |
Knowledge of organizations that are eligible to join the domain. Understanding the requirements of potential domain members. A customer database that is able to handle up to 950,000 customers and marketing tools to build profiles of target customers. |
|
|
Exploit customer and domain name information to market services |
R |
The Registrar will utilise its customer information to offer value added services, etc. |
A customer database that is able to handle 950,000 customers and marketing tools to build targeted campaigns. Separation of RO information from Registrar information to avoid unfair competition and misuse of data. |
|
|
Identify and prompt existing customers to renew domain names |
RO / R |
The RO / Registrar will proactively monitor the expiry date of domain names and contact customers to renew. |
A domain name database to know when the RO / Registrar customers’ domain names expire. Separation of RO information from Registrar information to avoid unfair competition and misuse of data. |
|
Develop registry / registrar services |
Systems development lifecycle processes |
RO / R |
The RO / Registrar will design, build and implement systems to provide the services. |
Systems development tools and lifecycle methodology |
|
Sell registry / registrar services |
Display services appropriately |
RO / R |
The RO / Registrar will determine the most appropriate medium and style for offering services to the customer. |
A Web server and web tools (e.g. authoring, content management and deployment). An e-commerce system that uses industry standard functionality (e.g. shopping basket) to offer products. |
|
|
Advise customers on services at Point of Sale (POS) |
RO / R |
The RO / R will provide advice on the optimum way to acquire and utilise domain names. Primarily, the RO’s customers will be Registrars and the Registrar’s customers will be ISPs and end users. |
Knowledge of the domain’s restrictions. Knowledge of legal issues. A database to look-up potential domain names against known trademarks A system to record the details of the customer, their request and the outcome. |
|
|
Identify additional services to customers at POS |
R |
At the point a customer purchases or uses a specific service or combination of services, the Registrar will offer complementary services to the customer. |
Context sensitive personalisation tools that determine the services offered to a customer from their previous and current purchases. A database of service offerings. |
|
|
Capture information about the customers at POS |
RO / R |
At the point of sale, the preferences of the customer will be recorded by the RO / Registrar and the customer might be asked to provide additional information. Primarily, the RO’s customers will be Registrars and the Registrar’s customers will be ISPs and end users. |
A database to record customers’ purchases, preferences and information that is able to handle 950,000 customers. |
|
|
Determine cost of services purchased / used |
RO / R |
At the point of sale, the services purchased by the customer will be calculated. Different services and combinations of services will be sold at a price determined by the market. There will be no flat charge. |
A database of service offerings and prices. |
|
|
Execute sales transaction |
RO / R |
The payment method and schedule are determined for each customer transaction, based on the standing of the customer with the RO / Registrar and the services they are purchasing. Both direct credit card and invoice-based payments are handled. |
Secure and scalable e-commerce payment system. Links to a mainstream credit card authorisation service. Scalable accounts and billing systems. |
|
Deliver registry / registrar services |
Advise customers on purchased services post sale |
RO / R |
Part of the fulfilment of a service is providing after sales support. This will be provided on-line through emails and by telephone through a helpdesk. |
A system to record the details of the customer, their request and the outcome. Scalable accounts and billing systems. A database to record customers’ purchases, preferences and information. Call handling system. |
|
|
Educate customers about domain names |
RO / R |
A key service customers will seek is advice on the most appropriate usage of domain names, restrictions on names within the domain, and so forth. This service will be delivered in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions on-line document, on-line utilities and telephone support. |
Knowledge of the domain’s restrictions. Knowledge of legal issues. A database to look-up potential domain names against known trademarks. A system to record the details of the customer, their request and the outcome. |
|
|
Verify the format and uniqueness of requested domain names |
RO / R |
A key service ROs and Registrars are obliged to provide is the verification of domain names. This will be implemented prior to the registration of domain names against a particular customer. |
A record of all registered domain names within the domains managed by the RO / Registrar. Knowledge of the domain’s restrictions. Knowledge of legal issues. A database to look-up potential domain names against known trademarks. |
|
|
Assign domain names to customers |
RO / R |
If the transaction has been completed and the domain name verified, then register the requested domain names to the customer. In some instances this will include second level domains. Primarily, the RO’s customers will be Registrars and the Registrar’s customers will be ISPs and end users. |
A domain name registration system. Shared registry system. |
|
|
Move accounts to other Registrars, ISPs, etc. on request |
R |
A key service Registrars will have to provide in a competitive domain space is the movement of domain name registrations from one Registrar to another. Additionally end-users may change ISPs necessitating a change to the domain’s name-servers. |
A domain name registration system. Standard interfaces to other Registrars etc. |
|
|
Modify domain name information |
RO / R |
The RO and Registrar must be able to alter the domain name information for their customers (and only their customers). Primarily, the RO’s customers will be Registrars and the Registrar’s customers will be ISPs and end users. |
Domain name database. A scalable domain name registration system. |
|
|
Respond to Whois queries |
RO / R |
Provision of a standard Whois service. RO’s will return details about name-servers and responsible Registrars. R’s will return details about end-users. |
A scalable Whois system that is able to handle 0.5M queries per day. |
|
|
Implement other services for customers |
RO / R |
In addition to the key services described above the RO / Registrar will deliver other services to the customer. |
|
|
Operate and administer services |
Manage the quality and integrity of the domain name system |
RO / R |
|
Capacity planning procedures. System and network management tools including configuration, performance and problem management. Security policy and secure systems. |
|
|
Provide assistance in the resolution of domain name disputes |
RO / R |
|
A domain name registration system. Interfaces to Registrars. |
|
|
Support the Sponsor in the development of the domain name space |
RO |
|
Produce metrics and key performance indicators for the domain name market and system. |
A review of the business processes above and of the operations of similar existing organisations shows that the functions described below will be required to run the Registry Operator and Registrar businesses. To determine the headcount of each business function, we have used as benchmarks the levels of transactions per month (including new registrations and renewals) and the total number of registrations within the year. The number of staff per transaction is, we believe, in line with industry standards.
The headcount for each the three demand scenarios (i.e. 10%, 50% and 90% confidence) are shown through year 1 to year 4.
Table 4: Staff for 10% confidence scenario
|
Year |
Reg Op / Registrar |
Business Manager |
Legal |
Marketing |
Reg Admin |
Customer Support |
Technical |
Finance |
Total |
|
Year 1 |
Registry Operator |
0.25 |
|
0.75 |
0.5 |
|
1.25 |
0.5 |
3.25 |
|
|
Registrar |
0.25 |
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